Android 2.3 Platform and Updated SDK Tools

I think Google knew today was my birthday :) because early today as a gift they finally announced a new version of their Android platform, Android 2.3 aka Gingerbread.

It seems this release is gaming oriented because they made a lot improvements in that area. Native input and sensor events, gyroscope for improved 3D motion processing, Open API for native audio, native graphics management, native access to activity lifecycle and window manager( this is something games developers have asked a lot!! ) a lot more. The complete overview of what is new in the platform you can check the Android 2.3 Platform Highlights.

They also updated the the SDK tools (r8), NDK and the ADT plugin for Eclipse. Basically they improved the debugging tools like the UI builder, hierarchy viewer, simplified debug builds and to obfuscate your code they integrated the ProGuard support inside the SDK Tools which is really nice.

You can check this official video for more info about the new cool features of Android Gingerbread. Hopefully we will see the OTA coming before the year ends.



Thanks for the gift Google :)